A study conducted by researchers from the University of São Paulo (USP), with support from the Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (Fapesp) and collaboration with researchers from the Oslo University Hospital, in Norway, showed that 31.4% of people hospitalized for trauma at the Hospital das Clínicas of the Faculty of Medicine (HC/FM-USP) showed traces of consumption of psychoactive substances.
Alcohol was the most common substance, with 23%, followed by cocaine (12%) and marijuana (5%). In 9% of the blood samples, signs of more than one drug were found.
The study was carried out between July 2018 and June 2019 with patients over 18 years of age who had traumatic injuries from traffic accidents, falls and episodes of violence, such as assaults, firearms and stabbings.
Among those surveyed, 44% showed some pattern of harmful alcohol consumption. With a mean age of 36 years, the 376 study participants, of which 80% were men, were recruited within the Hospital das Clínicas. Blood samples were collected after patients were already stabilized, at most six hours after the accident. Volunteers also answered socioeconomic questions.
According to the survey, of the hospitalizations analyzed, 56% were caused by traffic accidents, and almost half of them involved motorcyclists. Among these people, 31% tested positive for drug use. Among the study volunteers, the prevalence of consumption of psychoactive substances was higher in men (35%), individuals between 18 and 39 years old (41%), single (43%) and patients who suffered trauma at night (44%). .
“These are groups that tend to consume more drugs and are more exposed to risky situations. Alcohol is still the substance of greatest concern in terms of public health. The interesting fact is that the most impacted by these accidents were motorcyclists. For the first time, motorcyclists overtook pedestrians in fatality rate, because they were the main group affected. Since 2018, they occupy the first place, perhaps due to the increase in the number of delivery applications”, said Henrique Bombana, one of the authors of the study and a collaborating researcher at the Center for Forensic Sciences at FM-USP.
Bombana pointed out that the more serious the accident, the greater the prevalence of drug use. “Some studies have already shown that patients with traumatic injuries who used stimulant substances, such as cocaine, tend to have more serious injuries than those who did not use anything. We were able to observe, comparing with other studies, that also with drivers in traffic, the sequence of alcohol and drug use increases in relation to accidents and deaths.”
Thirteen percent of survey participants were hospitalized as a result of violent acts. Half had injuries from firearms, a fourth from physical aggression and a fifth from penetrating trauma, such as stabbings. In this group, the prevalence of alcohol and illicit drug use was higher (44%) and the mean age (31 years) was lower. In physical aggression, positive samples for narcotics reached 75%.
Hospitalizations resulting from falls represented 32% of individuals, with a mean age of 42 years, of which 29% had consumed alcohol or illicit drugs. The study also indicated that the prevalence of cocaine use was higher among patients and that the combination of alcohol and cocaine was the most common in the samples of this investigation.
According to Bombana, there were no data on the use of these substances among severe trauma patients and the existence of such information could contribute to the development of public policies for awareness and prevention. For the researcher, it is still necessary to deepen the studies on the subject, but it is possible to affirm that it is necessary to monitor, especially in traffic, not only the consumption of alcohol, which is already done, but of other drugs, such as cocaine and marijuana. . “There are some methods for this, but they are not used in Brazil, also due to lack of investment,” he said.
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